Editor’s Note: I asked Jean Spencer of Kapost to put together a “how-to” for the content marketing automation software, Kapost. This is a very cool company based in Boulder, Colorado and is making the lives of content marketers around the world easier.
In the world of B2B marketing, content has taken center stage. Nine out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing and, as numerous studies explore, inbound tactics deliver promising leads into the sales funnel.
In a world where buyers screen their phone calls and research options independently of salespeople, marketers use content to attract those buyers and nurture them toward purchase, setting up sales with a pipeline of qualified leads and potential revenue. And we all agree more revenue is a good thing.
But what marketers (seemingly) can’t agree on, is what kind of tool will help them deliver results.
Less than half of B2B marketers report having a documented content strategy. But as the number of blogs, tweets, videos, and eBooks increases the deluge can be overwhelming.
You need a software that can manage your content assets, a single place that keeps track of your strategy, production, and analytics.
Say hello to, Kapost (yes, I’m biased…but, seriously, this product rocks. I use it every day. Ask me anything.). Today, I’ll show you how to use Kapost to manage your editorial calendar.
The editorial calendar is the hub for content management—and, as far as we’ve seen, it’s the most requested feature in content organizational tools.
Hopefully, by the end of all these steps, you’ll be a master of the editorial calendar (and drooling to see what else Kapost can do).
Step 1: Identify Your Contributors
There are several kinds of people who work on content: admins, contributors, and out-of-house freelancers. Organize these people in the members tab to manage the various roles within your system and allocate appropriate access to the software. This keeps information that needs to be protected in the hands of few.
You can also set up payment rates, invoicing structures, and claimable content options right in the Kapost platform.
Step 2: Identify Your Content & Business Goals
Your content should reflect your business’s major events and goals. Start with goals. Identify revenue, sales and lead quotas. Then identify milestones (for example, product releases, trade show events, etc.). Write these into your calendar. Then, plan your content cadence around these.
Step 3: Populate Your Calendar
This is the fun part. So we put it in orange. Ha.
Organize and plan content deliverables within the calendar view of Kapost. Using a month view gives you vision into the consistency and regularity of your posts as well as illustrates a diverse cadence of information. For instance, you may have the following production goals: three blog posts per week, one infographic per month, and one podcast per week. These assets can be tracked in your calendar.
Color-coded assets make assessment of your content creation quick and easy.
Step 4: Assign Specific Tasks to Each Content Type and Follow Approvals![kapost, content]()
Use the “Tasks” panel on the right side of the page to manage workflows, authorship, responsibilities, and key details for the production of a single piece of content. This includes submission deadlines, edit deadlines, and publication deadlines. These workflows can be pre-populated as a template, or customizable for each individual asset. Your choice.
These tasks can be reflected in the calendar view, too.
Step 5: Collaborate in the Right Spots
Don’t get important information lost in your email inbox. Collaborate on edits, changes, or iterations of a content piece directly in the workspace for that asset. Use the “@” tag to automatically notify team members that their attention is needed.
Step 6: Drag-and-Drop Your Content Assets to Ensure Your Assets are Published at the Right Time
(Watch this 6-second screen cast to see the drag-and-drop functionality in action!)
Did your product release date suddenly move? Probably. Things change all the time—and good content marketing reflects those changes.
Easily drag-and-drop your content needs in the calendar view to reflect and business timeline changes. This process automatically notifies authors and contributors of their new deadlines, and keeps your calendar relevant and timely.
Step 7: Publish!
Kapost integrates with more than 40 online service providers. This makes it easy and seamless to push or pull information to end publication destinations, for instance WordPress, Facebook, or SaleForces.
Step 8: Track Production, Performance, Engagement & Conversions
Here’s where you prove content marketing is working.
Kapost analytics track various metrics like: social engagement, unique page views, conversions, top authors, top content, the amount of content your team is pumping out, and which types of content you’ve produced (as in, how many blog posts vs. webinars vs. eBooks have you created), and more.
Pull relevant information from the analytics tab to track progress and benchmark future content campaigns.
All done!
Voila! May your editorial content calendar be organized and effective for the rest of the year. Boom shakalaka.
Jean is a writer for Kapost, focusing on digital marketing, content marketing, the state of the journalism industry, and pushing and redefining the limits of what content marketing can be. She also likes to do crossword puzzles and rock climb.